Table Of ContentTHE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION
TO REMIX STUDIES
The Routledge Companion to Remix Studies comprises contemporary texts by key authors
and artists who are active in the emerging field of remix studies. As an organic interna-
tional movement, remix culture originated in the popular music culture of the 1970s,
and has since grown into a rich cultural activity encompassing numerous forms of media.
The act of recombining pre-existing material brings up pressing questions of authen-
ticity, reception, authorship, copyright, and the techno-politics of media activism. This
book approaches remix studies from various angles, including sections on history, aes-
thetics, ethics, politics, and practice, and presents theoretical chapters alongside case
studies of remix projects. The Routledge Companion to Remix Studies is a valuable resource
for both researchers and remix practitioners, as well as a teaching tool for instructors
using remix practices in the classroom.
Eduardo Navas is the author of Remix Theory: The Aesthetics of Sampling (Springer, 2012).
He researches and teaches principles of cultural analytics and digital humanities in the
School of Visual Arts at The Pennsylvania State University, PA. Navas is a 2010–12 Post-
Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Information Science and Media Studies at the
University of Bergen, Norway, and received his PhD from the Program of Art and Media
History, Theory, and Criticism at the University of California in San Diego.
Owen Gallagher received his PhD in Visual Culture from the National College of Art
and Design (NCAD) in Dublin. He is the founder of TotalRecut.com, an online com-
munity archive of remix videos, and a co-founder of the Remix Theory & Praxis seminar
group. He is the author of a number of research papers and book chapters on remix
culture, intellectual property, and visual semiotics. Owen is a lecturer of Web Media at
Bahrain Polytechnic.
xtine burrough is a media artist and educator. She has authored or edited several books
including Foundations of Digital Art and Design (New Riders, 2014) and Net Works: Case
Studies in Web Art and Design (Routledge, 2012). She believes in the transformative
power of participatory, digital art. xtine bridges the gaps between histories, theories, and
production in new media education.
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T H E R O U T L E D G E
C O M PA N I O N T O R E M I X
S T U D I E S
Edited by
Eduardo Navas, Owen Gallagher,
and xtine burrough
First published 2015
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2015 Taylor & Francis
The right of the editors to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of
the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections
77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in
any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
The Routledge companion to remix studies/edited by Eduardo Navas, Owen Gallagher,
and xtine Burrough
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Appropriation (Arts) 2. Remixes—History and criticism. I. Navas, Eduardo. II.
Gallagher, Owen. III. Burrough, Xtine.
NX197.R38 2015
700.9′04—dc23
2014022804
ISBN: 978-0-415-71625-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-87999-4 (ebk)
Typeset in Goudy
by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
List of Figures and Tables xi
Notes on Contributors xiv
Introduction 1
EDUARDO NAVAS, OWEN GALLAGHER,
AND XTINE BURROUGH
PART I
History 13
1 Remix and the Dialogic Engine of Culture: A Model for Generative
Combinatoriality 15
MARTIN IRVINE
2 A Rhetoric of Remix 43
SCOTT H. CHURCH
3 Good Artists Copy; Great Artists Steal: Reflections on
Cut-Copy-Paste Culture 54
STEFAN SONVILLA-WEISS
4 Toward a Remix Culture: An Existential Perspective 68
VITO CAMPANELLI
5 An Oral History of Sampling: From Turntables to Mashups 83
KEMBREW McLEOD
6 Can I Borrow Your Proper Name? Remixing Signatures and the
Contemporary Author 96
CICERO INACIO DA SILVA
7 The Extended Remix: Rhetoric and History 104
MARGIE BORSCHKE
8 Culture and Remix: A Theory on Cultural Sublation 116
EDUARDO NAVAS
v
CONTENTS
PART II
Aesthetics 133
9 Remix Strategies in Social Media 135
LEV MANOVICH
10 Remixing Movies and Trailers Before and After the Digital Age 154
NICOLA MARIA DUSI
11 Remixing the Plague of Images: Video Art from Latin America in a
Transnational Context 166
ERANDY VERGARA
12 Race and Remix: The Aesthetics of Race in the Visual and
Performing Arts 179
TASHIMA THOMAS
13 Digital Poetics and Remix Culture: From the Artisanal Image to the
Immaterial Image 192
MONICA TAVARES
14 The End of an Aura: Nostalgia, Memory, and the Haunting
of Hip Hop 204
ROY CHRISTOPHER
15 Appropriation Is Activism 217
BYRON RUSSELL
PART III
Ethics 225
16 The Emerging Ethics of Networked Culture 227
ARAM SINNREICH
17 The Panopticon of Ethical Video Remix Practice 246
METTE BIRK
18 Cutting Scholarship Together/Apart: Rethinking the
Political Economy of Scholarly Book Publishing 258
JANNEKE ADEMA
19 Copyright and Fair Use in Remix: From Alarmism to Action 270
PATRICIA AUFDERHEIDE
20 I Thought I Made a Vid, but Then You Told Me That I Didn’t:
Aesthetics and Boundary Work in the Fan-Vidding Community 283
KATHARINA FREUND
21 Peeling the Layers of the Onion: Authorship in Mashup
and Remix Cultures 296
JOHN LOGIE
22 remixthecontext (A Theoretical Fiction) 310
MARK AMERIKA
vi
CONTENTS
PART IV
Politics 321
23 A Capital Remix 323
RACHEL O’DWYER
24 Remix Practices and Activism: A Semiotic Analysis
of Creative Dissent 333
PAOLO PEVERINI
25 Political Remix Video as a Vernacular Discourse 346
OLIVIA CONTI
26 Locative Media as Remix 358
CONOR McGARRIGLE
27 The Politics of John Lennon’s “Imagine”: Contextualizing
the Roles of Mashups and New Media in Political Protest 374
J. MERYL KRIEGER
28 Détournement as a Premise of the Remix from Political, Aesthetic,
and Technical Perspectives 386
NADINE WANONO
29 The New Polymath (Remixing Knowledge) 397
RACHEL FALCONER
PART V
Practice 409
30 Crises of Meaning in Communities of Creative Appropriation:
A Case Study of the 2010 RE/Mixed Media Festival 411
TOM TENNEY
31 Of Re/appropriations 425
GUSTAVO ROMANO
32 Aesthetics of Remix: Networked Interactive Objects and
Interface Design 432
JONAH BRUCKER-COHEN
33 Reflections on the Amen Break: A Continued History,
an Unsettled Ethics 444
NATE HARRISON
34 Going Crazy with Remix: A Classroom Study by Practice
via Lenz v. Universal 453
XTINE BURROUGH AND EMILY ERICKSON
35 A Remix Artist and Advocate 461
DESIREE D’ALESSANDRO
36 Occupy/Band Aid Mashup: “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” 471
OWEN GALLAGHER
vii
CONTENTS
37 Remixing the Remix 480
ELISA KREISINGER
38 A Fair(y) Use Tale 487
ERIC S. FADEN
39 An Aesthetics of Deception in Political Remix Video 495
DIRAN LYONS
40 Radical Remix: Manifestoon 503
JESSE DREW
41 In Two Minds 509
KEVIN ATHERTON
Index 516
viii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A major project such as an anthology for a field of studies is made possible thanks to the
collaboration of many individuals who unselfishly support a book’s eventual publication.
For this reason, we would like to thank all of the contributors who accepted our invita-
tion to participate and write a text that went through a long editing process. We would
like to thank our editor at Routledge, Erica Wetter, for considering the proposal of a
reader, and the editorial board at Routledge, who offered us this major project by induct-
ing what was once a smaller proposal into part of the Routledge Companion series. We
also thank Simon Jacobs, Editorial Assistant at Routledge, who oversaw the book’s pro-
cess during its early stages, reviewed it, and prepared it for its final production. We thank
the remix community, who participated in a survey we distributed during the proposal
stage of this project. Their feedback was vital in determining the feasibility of a publica-
tion of this magnitude.
—Eduardo Navas, Owen Gallagher, and xtine burrough
I would like to thank Graeme Sullivan, Director of The School of Visual Arts at The
Pennsylvania State University, for his support in the last two years that led to the
eventual publication of The Routledge Companion to Remix Studies. I also thank Lev
Manovich for his ongoing support in my research and activities. His unselfish critical
feedback has always proven fruitful for all aspects of my practice. I also thank my fam-
ily, especially my wife and partner, Annie Mendoza, who gave me moral support and
the time needed to finish such a long-term project. And I thank my two sons
Oscar Eduardo and Oliver Antonio for constantly reminding me what is ultimately
important in life.
—Eduardo Navas
I wish to extend my gratitude to Dr. Paul O’Brien and Professor Jessica Hemmings of
the Faculty of Visual Culture, and Professor Des Bell, Head of Academic Affairs and
Research at the National College of Art and Design (NCAD), Dublin, for their guid-
ance and support of my research over the past few years, leading to the publication of
this volume. I also thank Brendan Muller, Web Media Programme Manager, for his
support of my involvement in this project while simultaneously lecturing at Bahrain
Polytechnic. I would like to thank my parents, Brendan and Frances Gallagher, for
their unwavering encouragement and most importantly, I thank my wife, Aoife, and
my daughters, Jennifer and Rebecca, for their love and support throughout this
process.
—Owen Gallagher
ix
